BioHazard
by littlelunaeve
Summary: Written by VF142 For the now abandoned Roughneck Forum


Biohazard, Part I

What's this war in the heart of nature? Why must nature vie with itself, the land contend with the sea? Is there an avenging power in nature? Not one power but two? The man sitting on the beach thought this out. It was an isolated area of Costa Rica, Bahia Anasco, not that this man particularly minded, he liked the isolation of Bahia Anasco and the friendliness of its people.

"I remember my mother when she was dying." he said, thinking aloud, "All shrunk up and gray. I asked if she was afraid, she shook her head. I was afraid to touch the death I see in her. I couldn't see anything beautiful or uplifting about her going back to God. I heard people talking about immortality, but I ain't seen it."

I wondered how it'd be when I died; to know that this breath you draw now is going to be the last one you were ever going to draw. I just hope I can meet it the same way she did, with that same calm. 'Cause that's where it's hidden, the immortality I ain't ever seen.

It was some weeks later that Taine was hauled aboard a patrol boat and sent back to his old unit. "You haven't changed at all, have you Taine?" said Staff Sergeant Cantro, "You haven't learned a thing. You've been in the Army what, six years, ain't it about time you smartened up, stop acting like such a pup recruit?"

"We can't all be smart." Taine replied, his accent reflective of his Australian heritage.

"I know, that's a pity, look at you." said Cantro, "Normally you'd be court martialled, but I worked a deal for you, you'd best consider yourself lucky. I'm sending you to a disciplinary outfit, Tango Company. You'll be fined one half of a month's pay for three months."

"I can take whatever you dish out." Taine replied, "I am twice the man you are."

"In this world, a man by himself is nothing." said Cantro, "And there ain't no other world but this one."

"You're wrong there, sarge, I've seen another world." Taine replied.

Back in the brig: "I never thought he hated me," Taine said, "Because I never hated him."

**********************************************

The hovercraft landing craft pitched violently jarring the soldiers occupying the vehicle skimming across the surface of the Atlantic. The United Systems Military facility, the Isla Del Rio military research facility, had experienced a violent assault and the 172nd Infantry Regiment was being dispatched to reinforce the increasingly outnumbered garrison under siege.

PFC Vincent Taine was in the craft that was the tail end of the first wave. The front end was supposed to establish a beachhead and allow for the succeeding waves to send the relief expedition on its way. The craft shook violently was forced to drop its soldiers in neck deep water. The desperate soldiers dropped weapons, field packs, and assorted supplies to get ashore. Taine saw several soldiers around him disappear under water and as he raced madly ashore, dropping his own weapon, he saw before him a veritable charnel house.

A mortally wounded soldier shouted primal fear and pain and as Taine ran by, he grabbed the man's derelict weapon, an electric gun wrapped in plastic wrapping to protect it from submerging in water. Saying a silent prayer for the dying man, Taine ran toward a knot of soldiers running deep into the jungle. Tearing the plastic from the weapon, Taine hoped that someone would have a plan as he entered a clearing

At the clearing the most senior of them, 2nd Lieutenant Perryman, said, "Okay boys, the plan's fubared, as far as we're concerned. Our best hope is to link up with the troops at the facility."

They made for the base at their best speed, and as they marched through a ravine they were unaware of the ambush about to occur. A man came straggling out of the jungle, his clothing ragged; the smell that clung to him was horrible like the stench of death. At first thinking he was wounded, one of the medics ran out to help only to be attacked by the man. The soldiers gunned down the apparition and it was then that more of the zombie like creatures came staggering out of the jungle. The soldiers fought them off but the zombies were being disgorged from the jungle like rats from a sinking ship.

Taine took down a zombie with a blast of electrical energy, shoved past another, and ran, joining several soldiers in full retreat. The soldiers ran to toward the edge of a field with tall elephant grass. Lieutenant Perryman stopped short; he knew danger when he saw it. "Don't go into the long grass!"

The others hadn't heard him and he threw his field pack aside in order to catch up, "Not into the long grass!"

Swiftly and silently they made their way towards the unit, a soldier in the aft of the column pitched backwards. Two more in front of him fell in rapid succession. A third was felled as a high pitched screech sounded and then the survivors were spurred into a massive panic, fleeing in all directions or attempting to fight off their attackers.

Taine followed a group of soldiers fleeing toward an apparent corridor in the ambush when the leader was yanked under the grass. Taine turned around in time to see a dark shape; a humanoid scuttling about on all fours with no eyes and a fang filled mouth, land on top of him….

It was quite some time later before Taine came to; something was scuttling in the grass beside his head. He grabbed his weapon, lying within arms length, and field pack. As he adjusted his helmet, he looked up as he heard the same high-pitched screeching sound and still more screaming, human screams as the people connected to them were being dismembered all around him. Taine charged madly out of the grass, burning down two more of the creatures trying to ambush him when the ground fell out from under him, causing him to tumble down a steep hillside. Biting back a curse and lifting both weapon and field pack, Taine walked forward into the base.

The base seemed abandoned, as evidenced by the eerie stillness lying over it, and the smashed ruin of the guardhouse and sandbag strongpoint, which evidently had been the scene of some heavy fighting as evidenced by the mangled bodies, and derelict weapons lying around it.

He heard before he saw what had come out from behind the sandbags, it sounded like the whine of a chain saw motor and Taine saw what had to have been something that stepped out of a cheesy Saturday night horror flick, a hugely muscled man in a hockey mask advancing on him with the chainsaw in hand. Taine gave it a quick burst of voltage, succeeding only in knocking the creature back a few steps. He fired again and the burst of electrical energy swarmed over the slasher, sending it crashing to the ground.

He took stock of his supplies. In his running fight with the zombies and those screechers in the field he had pretty much burned through most of his 100-unit energy pack, he still had six more, two on his belt and four in his field pack, but he needed more. He also had three hand grenades as well.

It then occurred to him to seek shelter, the incentive becoming more urgent as he heard more low moans echoing and the sound of chainsaw motors. He ducked inside the research lab, the largest building on base. The door closed automatically behind him, shutting out the sounds of the outside, now the only steps Vincent Taine heard were his own footsteps and the beating of his own heart, hammering in his ribcage. He passed through an office space and saw a wounded man lying propped against the floor.

The wounded soldier feebly leveled his rifle at him. "Wait!" Taine shouted, "Don't shoot!"

"Oh God." Taine said, he was no medic, but one look at the man's wound was all it took to tell him that he wasn't going to make it, "What happened?"

"Don't know, one day the monsters come bursting out of the fog and into the base. Most of the guys are either dead or holed up in all the buildings, prepared for a last stand. There are still survivors here." the soldier replied, "Most of us are here in the building."

"I can't just leave you here." Taine replied.

"Go." the soldier said forcefully, motioning with his rifle "Go, now."

Taine proceeded deeper into the building, his boot steps the only sounds he could hear, through the illumination of flickering light fixtures he could see that the building was wrecked thoroughly.

It was then, as he opened a sound proofed door that he walked into a cacophony of noise. Rifle shots, screams, pounding footsteps all drifted down the stairwell. Running upstairs, Taine saw a group of soldiers engaging in a fierce firefight with several mutated creatures. The band of soldiers began to run low on ammunition as the creatures fell upon them and Taine could see several in full retreat, badly injured and shooting wildly.

Seeing several zombies swarming into the room, Taine pulled one of his hand grenades and threw it into their midst. The explosion had killed several of them as Taine pelted down a passageway, making good his escape.

A piece of paper Taine saw lying set apart from others lay on a desk and he picked it up. The paper read:

Memorandum: Ammo caches

Due to worries about the weapons being seized by terrorists, 1st Lieutenant Price, security, has relocated them to several arms caches throughout the building. Locating these caches is of prime importance now, as we have no clue as to Price's whereabouts…

The rest of the document appeared to have been burned, possibly as a result of misdirected fire, the results of at least one grenade blast was evident in the immediate vicinity of the desk.

As Taine walked through the corridors of the wrecked building, it was as though he had wandered into the aftermath of a war zone. Bullet holes riveted several surfaces, mingled with carbon scoring from laser and electric weapons, wet arcs of blood, and charred surfaces from grenade blasts. The closer he got to one of the crossover tunnels that joined the buildings on the base, the more evidence of carnage he saw. He had to tread carefully now; there were large gaping holes in the floor and ceiling, presumably from heavier weaponry.

He arrived at Crossover Tunnel Two; the partially closed gastight door had been blown of its track by a powerful explosive, from the tunnel side. Apparently this natural chokepoint was the site of a big firefight as evidenced by the number of corpses lying in and around the crossover tunnel. The decapitated corpse of a machine-gunner lying killed at his machinegun along with several of the riflemen supporting him and several of the attackers bore mute testimony to savage fighting.

As he crossed the tunnel, gingerly stepping around holes blown through the floor an artillery shell exploded into the side of the building. What the hell? Taine thought. Why on earth was the army shelling the facility. Looking through a blown out window, Taine could see why, the artillery was blasting at a mob of creatures swarming into the building from the jungle. Several shells scored near misses with the building's side.

As Taine crossed the tunnel he found an open notebook lying atop a desk. The latest entry in the notebook, apparently the night watchman's diary was odd:

Night Watchman's Diary:

It's been six days since those creatures started attacking us. Two more sectors of the research facility have fallen. Nine days before this, the night watches have been reporting hearing unusual sounds, sighting strange creatures, and even occasional skirmishes emanating from the jungle. Strangely enough, nine days earlier, they started experimenting with some weird stone obelisk found on the ocean bottom. Eight days ago, I was standing my post on the roof when I saw a strange incident. One of the patrolmen went up to what appeared to be a wounded man and went to help him. However, the apparent casualty attacked our man and the patrolman was nearly killed before we killed the creature. We sent the dead creature into the lab and haven't seen it since…

As Taine walked through into another room and nearly wound up shot by his own people. A haggard looking soldier leveled his rifle at him and sounded an alarm.

"Wait!" Taine shouted, "Don't shoot!"

He saw a group of about twenty soldiers, some of them survivors from the 172nd Regiment, Staff Sergeant Cantro included, much to his annoyance.

"Taine, what the hell's going on?" said Cantro.

"Apparently, Staff Sergeant, quite a bit." Taine replied, handing him the night watchman's diary.

"Alright," said Cantro, "Man that barricade over there with Fisher."

Taine took the post, "Do you mind filling me in?"

"Taine, we're holed up over here, barely holding out, what more is there to tell you." Cantro said, "I swear it's that smart mouth of yours that's messed your service record over. You've been a corporal three times and a sergeant twice because of that, when is it going to sink in to button up and follow orders without asking."

Jerk. Taine thought, Bloody bringing up that piece of my career time and again, he expects us to follow him blindly.

Taine's latest demotion from corporal to private first class had been directly as a result of what Cantro had wrote up as insubordination because Taine had disagreed with one of Cantro's decisions in the field. He had given a logical reason why he disagreed and he had told it straight up.

The twenty-one soldiers holed up in the auditorium and adjoining side corridor were in a pocket surrounded by the creatures. Taine managed to piece together what was happening at the barricade as he set up a machinegun into the position. The creatures were apparently more intelligent than they realized and exhibiting basic team work characteristics they had cut off various segments of the building, isolating pockets and thus making any organized defense impossible. They were also starting to mop up the pockets as several of the soldiers around him said.

The defenders were running low on ammunition, their machinegun being down to its last belts of ammunition. Cantro joined them at the position, "Anything."

"No." said Fisher from the machinegun.

Cantro loaded a fresh clip into his laser as one of the lookouts shouted, "Here they come!"

Rifle shots began to sound, first a few and then increasing in volume as more creatures arrived. Fisher cocked the machinegun and started firing, Cantro and Taine adding their weapons in.

The first belt ran out quickly and Fisher shoved the last of the 250 round belts into the breach in time to gun down a particularly nasty second wave assault. Cantro fired with precision, taking down many attacking zombies and slashers with burning holes in torsos and stomachs.

A slasher crept behind him, raising a machete, and Cantro turned in time to see his assailant get struck by an electrical blast. Taine was attacked by a zombie and fought a hand-to-hand fight for survival.

The machinegun ran out of ammunition and Fisher took up his rifle and jumped back into the fight.

Cantro knocked a zombie down with his laser rifle only to be stabbed through the back by a machete by an attacking slasher. The slasher wound up getting impaled by a bayonet from another soldier.

With ammunition running low, Taine shouted, "Retreat!"

Several soldiers, hearing Taine, barreled down the side corridor, pursued by the attacking creatures, several of them falling prey to ambushes in the various rooms near the side corridors. Taine expended his last two hand grenades into their pursuit as he shoved the door close behind the seven surviving soldiers with him.

The found themselves in a massive two story room with an ancient stone obelisk in its center. Ancient writings scrawled on the stone mingled with various electrical wirings. Taine looked at the writings more intently, he didn't recognize them immediately, but then he realized that underneath each one were characters in ancient Greek.

"What's it mean?" said one of the soldiers.

"It's some sort of ancient saying: In the Lost City, an ancient evil lurks, an unholy plague about the earth. Should this stone and its companion be found, the ancient evil shall be unbound."

"How do you know that?" said the soldier.

"My parents were both archaeologists for the British Museum." Taine replied, unconsciously rubbing a tiny ankh he had affixed to his dog tags, "I picked up a few things here and there."

"I don't mean to rush things, but shouldn't we be trying to find a way out of here?" said another soldier, a British sergeant named Muldoon from Taine's company in the 172nd.

"Yes sergeant." Taine replied.

"First things first, let's inventory what we have left and thus determine how best to break out of this building. The Sergeant Major always told me to take stock of a situation before rushing head long." Sergeant Muldoon replied.

"You're wearing the stripes, mate." Taine replied.

"You look like you should be wearing them. Taine, isn't it?" said Muldoon. Taine nodded.

"Ah yes, I remember you, you've been a corporal three times and a sergeant twice." Sergeant Muldoon replied, "The Sergeant Major always told me to know as much as I can about the men I serve with, it could come in handy at some point."

"Who is this sergeant major you keep talking about?" Taine asked.

"My father." Muldoon said proudly. He had that same imperious yet quietly confident manner inherent to an officer.

"I've heard of you too, sarge." Taine replied, "You were an officer cadet, but you aren't in the academy anymore, why?"

"Some bloke chose to dishonor the Sergeant Major, and I gave him a taste of his own medicine." Muldoon replied, "They drummed me out as a yearling cadet, I could see the downcast look in the Sergeant Major's eyes when they did that too. Some of those classmates of mine had become my closest friends. Bloody odd how they expect us to uphold our honor, but yet when I defended my family honor, I was dismissed from Sandhurst. I understand that's what you've gotten into some scraps over. That's why they demoted you the first four times, fighting other soldiers who insulted the honor of your dead family."

"Right." Taine growled as he produced his last full energy pack plus the forty charge units in his weapon.

"Two pistol clips, and two rifle clips." Muldoon replied. All together, the soldiers had twelve rifle clips, and one assault weapon clip.

The assault weapon was a cross between a pulse rifle and a machinegun, having the light machinegun's fully automatic capabilities and the rifle's portability, chambering 120 10mm pulse rifle rounds in one magazine. PFC Ted Hendrick, a wisecracking Canadian of twenty-one from the 172nd, carried it.

"Looks like going out with guns blazing isn't the answer." Muldoon said, "We'll do this, we shed all non-essential equipment, place mags and clips where we can reach them, I also want extra grenades for the point man and rear guard. Hendrick, I want you covering our asses for this run, from here all the way to the motor pool. Our best bet is to go through the kitchen, through the galley, and down the center stairwell. Taine, I want you on point, I'll be behind you, the rest of you, fill in the rest of the column, Hendrick, you're on rearguard with that assault weapon."

"Sarge, this is jacked." Hendrick said, "We got no ammo, we're surrounded by monsters, and we don't have a damned chance."

"It's the best plan we've got." Taine replied.

Hendrick kicked the obelisk, the nearest object, out of sheer frustration. "Hey, don't do that." Taine replied, "That isn't going to solve anything."

"Just 'cause your mama was a freaking archaeologist, is that why you care. If it weren't for her and her kind they wouldn't have discovered these freaking disks."

"Don't turn this on me you damned Canadian!" Taine replied angrily, Hendrick had just crossed a line and insulted his mother.

"Like I care you illiterate Aussie son of a…." that was about as far as Hendrick got as a blow from Taine's fist landed and in less than a second Taine dived on top of him, holding Hendrick by the throat.

"You say one more thing about my mother that's degrading and I will cut your throat so fast your head will spin." Taine said in a low and menacing tone.

Muldoon yanked Taine off him, "The Sergeant Major always told me an angry soldier is an ineffective soldier. Put a lid on it, both of you."

After redistributing the five remaining grenades, Muldoon moved the team out; the kitchen and galley strangely quiet, the central staircase having surprisingly little opposition. However, when they got into the motor pool, they saw a veritable congregation of creatures roving about, some feeding on corpses of victims, others stalking about for prey.

"Alright, see that truck over there, on my command, run straight for it." Muldoon said, "Go, now!"

Running and shooting the eight survivors fired off most of their ammunition in their running fight into the truck. Muldoon got behind the wheel, threw it into gear and crashed out of the partially opened doors.

As the truck bounced through the jungle and onto the beach where a general retreat was forming, a large scorpion, as big as the truck, came out of the jungle. Its hard carapace was not harmed by the direct impact of the truck. The soldiers scrambled clear of the wreckage as the giant scorpion came towards them, impaling one of the soldiers through the torso.

Taine was disoriented by the crash and by the time he regained his bearings, the scorpion was almost on top of him, it's pincers ready to grapple and rend him in half when it's head suddenly exploded in a gush of arachnid guts. Standing beside the wreckage was Muldoon, an anti-tank rifle cradled in his arms.

"The Sergeant Major always told me to watch my back, and watch the backs of my men." Muldoon said as he dragged Taine from the dead hulk of the scorpion.

As the evacuation finished off and the exhausted soldiers of the 172nd, which had sustained forty percent casualties, every soldier knew that the fighting had just begun, it was just a matter of where and when the fighting would start…

Biohazard, Part II

November: "Hey sarge," Taine said, "What have you heard about our new unit?"

"Bunch of Aussie boys from what I heard. Good bunch of lads." Muldoon replied.

The 172nd Regiment had been so badly mauled that its remnants were being spread out to reinforce other units. Taine, Hendrick, and Muldoon had all been sent into the 5th Infantry Division, with the 144th Australian Regiment. All were part of the larger Seventh Army.

The Portsmouth harbor was a wave of activity, in preparation for the United Systems Military plan to reoccupy a far off island in the North Atlantic, 120 miles off the coast of Europe, Sheena Island. Tanks were being painted white and soldiers were being issued white camouflaged parkas among other things, it was after all, mid-November.

The Transatlantic journey was a nervous one for many of the soldiers, several of which had never seen combat before. "The Sergeant Major told me nothing prepares you for combat." Muldoon said, dropping rifle clips into his bandolier, "Training, boot camp, simulations, that teaches you what to do, but it won't prep you for what you face."

"You've got it right." Taine replied, nodding. His head was turned in such a way that he hadn't seen a sticky fingered private grab a pistol off a nearby bunk and walk away with it.

The Marines had already secured the Sheena Island beaches and as the landing craft touched ashore they directed Army units into the front lines where they were needed. On the front lines stiff opposition was encountered on every section of the front, particularly in Dyson City, the only major city on Sheena, and the sector of the front held by the 5th Infantry, the 144th Australian was forced to dig in and hold fast against increasing attacks at all hours of the day and night.

Staff Sergeant Keck, the platoon sergeant for Muldoon and Taine's platoon was part of a patrol that poked across no-man's land, searching out the hiding places where the undead creatures they did battle with were hiding. Lieutenant Whyte, the platoon leader, had been killed an hour earlier by a slasher that quickly retreated into a stand of pine trees.

Keck, an old hand of the Army, had ordered the men to hunker down. The patrol had been hunkered behind the snow embankment for almost three hours, the cold biting despite their heavy clothing.

"Why didn't they come and drive us out in force?" said one nervous soldier, PFC Donald Rees, the affable pistol thief.

"Who knows." Sergeant Queen said, an eight-year Army veteran from Adelaide.

Before he could reply, Rees saw three slashers walking up the side of a snowy hill. Sighting his rifle, turning off the safety, Rees fired six times, missing five of them, but killing one of the slashers with his sixth shot. "I got 'em! I got 'em!"

"Hey Queen! Queen you there!" Rees shouted.

"Yeah!" Queen shouted.

"I counted three slashers leaving that snowy ridge. I got me one of them." Rees said.

"So." Queen shouted back.

"I think maybe their pulling out." Rees shouted back, "Maybe somebody ought to go tell the captain!"

"Well you wanna be the one to do it." Queen shouted back, "Just stay put, I'm ordering you."

"Here they come!" shouted PFC Beasly, the unit sniper, snapping off a shot, killing a zombie that staggered back down the ridge with a large group, accompanied with several screechers.

Keck and several of the other soldiers in the nineteen-man patrol returned fire. Just when it seemed they had driven off one attack, another materialized.

Firing his laser until it went empty, Keck grabbed for a grenade behind his back, to his everlasting horror he saw the pin in his right hand. Throwing himself against the embankment, the grenade exploded. "Keck!" someone shouted.

"Oh Jesus!" Keck yelled, "I blew my butt off! I blew my butt off! What a f#$king recruit trick to pull, I grabbed it by the pin! You write my old lady, tell her I died like a man!"

"Nobody's gonna have to write your old lady, you're gonna make it out of this." Rees said.

"Don't you bullshit me!" Keck shouted, almost hysterical, grabbing Rees by the front of his parka, leaving twin stains of red from his hands on Rees' lapels.

Keck died raving. "You gonna write his wife?" Muldoon said to Rees.

"F#$k no. I'm no good at writing letters." said Rees, "That's the Company Commander's job, not mine…."

"You told him you would." Muldoon said.

"You say anything to them when they're like that." Rees said.

"Let's get back to our lines, shall we." Muldoon said, leading the patrol back to friendly lines.

Taine was standing his post in his foxhole, while the other soldier on watch stood his post at the machinegun. The other soldier was a slender man in his early forties, with a gruff voice. He was a preacher from Darwin known simply as the Reverend to his fellow soldiers.

"Hey Reverend," said the third soldier occupying the cramped snow hole, Rees, "Why'd you join up."

"The shepherd must tend his flock." the Reverend replied, "And at times, fight off the wolves."

"Speaking of wolves Reverend," Taine said, indicating several stealthy shapes moving toward the foxholes from a nearby gulley.

Rees raised his rifle to shoot, Taine stopped him, "Reverend, move that machinegun over here, and on my signal, gun those bastards down."

The zombies and slashers came into view and Taine said, "Fire."

The Reverend let fly with the machinegun, spraying an entire belt into the attackers, the surviving creatures retreated. Hearing the gunfire, Muldoon, rifle unslung, came running.

"They're gone." Taine said, indicating six dead creatures lying in the snow, machinegunned by a clever trap.

Resuming their post, Taine, the Reverend, and Rees were relieved by the oncoming watch. Returning to the bivouac, Muldoon said, "From the top, Sergeant Queen's promotion to platoon sergeant means we need a squad leader. I recommended you for the job and the LT concurs, you're acting squad sergeant."

Taine stood astounded, "This is the third time I've made sergeant."

"Hopefully you'll have that acting rank be permanent. And also that you'll keep that third stripe this time around." Muldoon said.

Fifteen days, Taine thought, fifteen days of these nonstop energy barrages followed by mass infantry assaults on our positions.

Fifteen days earlier, Taine had put on that third stripe, and it seemed almost as soon as he took charge of Queen's old squad, major offensives along the entire sector held by the 144th Australian.

An energy burst exploded, throwing an unwary soldier into the air. For minutes on end, the barrage went on, and an eerie silence settled over the no-man's land, a silence Taine knew would be swiftly broken.

The first rifle shots the heralded an assault sounded through the trenches as the outposts were attacked. The gunfire began to increase in intensity and up and down the sector, the 144th continued to fight.

The Reverend was firing his rifle into the attacking mass of zombies, slashers, screechers and other monsters. They seemed to be using this trick constantly, and it was working. Already many units had to withdraw their lines inward a few miles as fighting in Dyson City's wrecked streets intensified.

The re-drawn lines had the 5th Infantry Division, together with the 8th and 3rd Divisions holding a sector of the front called the Bastion, as repeated assaults had been launched against this position again and again, but always were driven back. The 11th Armored Division acted as a mobile reserve to combat the biggest assaults.

All these big picture strategic terms, meaning a lot to the generals but very little to the men freezing in the trenches. Things however, were about to get worse. Encircled now, the Seventh Army was on its own against attacking forces, with supplies starting to run low. Mandel Airfield, a medium sized airport, was quickly seen as an artery for supplies to be flown in to keep up the fighting and evacuate the wounded from the front lines.

A gorgeous red dawn appeared over the horizon, the first Taine had seen in a long time. By now the 7th Army had been here for three months, three months of fighting that seemed to intensify and then lull only to resume again.

The lovely dawn was somewhat sobered by the fact that the outpost Taine and his squad manned had been observing massive buildups of enemy forces, from hordes of zombies, to scuttling scorpions and the enormous energy cannons in their sector. However, the 144th was helpless to prevent it, they were running out of ammunition.

A rolling barrage appeared, driving Taine and his men into the ground. When the barrage passed further to the rear, Taine saw several giant scorpions scuttling into a gulley. Patiently, Taine waited to spring a trap. He had stationed a .75-millimeter anti-tank gun out to his right, in the no-man's land.

The first of the scorpions scuttled from the gulley and Taine fired a flare into the sky. The bright starburst alerted the gun crew and the .75 roared. The first scorpion took the shell right through the head, which passed right through it's entire armored carapace before exploding in open air.

The .75 roared again, the second scorpion taking the shell through the flanks, blowing it in half. A third scorpion was hit in the legs and lay thrashing about madly before it died. Taine had won the first skirmish, but the enemy regrouped. Taine quickly called up artillery support, getting only seven rounds from rear batteries, which were being severely rationed.

The scorpions appeared again and Taine's .75 went back into action again. After firing fifteen rounds, Taine received a phone call from his irate commander who shouted, "Only take sure shots."

And in the middle of a battle, the sergeant had to explain why he had been so reckless with ammunition. He was ordered to get his crew on the ball. For his work in driving off another enemy attack, Taine received an official reprimand for wasting shells.

Muldoon was made aware of this when Taine trudged into the barracks, angrily kicking an ammo case out of his way. "Bastards!" Taine shouted, "You'd think they'd be grateful for me driving off another assault, but no, Lieutenant Griffin had to yell at me for wasting shells. Well would you rather I waste shells or let those armored units over run our outpost!"

Muldoon, cleaning his rifle, nodded sagely, "That's the Army for you. You do them a big service and they charge you for breaking regulation. The Sergeant Major told me to expect that."

"I don't know what he meant by yelling at you, but I believe your actions saved our lives." the Reverend said, "Griffin wasn't on the frontlines, he couldn't have known."

"Unreasonable piece of…." Taine said, as an energy orb struck the bunker, shaking the walls and raining dirt onto the occupants.

"Hey sarge," said Rees, "Thanks, you saved us out there."

"You're welcome." Taine growled.

"You'll find, invariably that the Army will screw you over on anything." Muldoon said.

"Another piece of advice from the Sergeant Major?" Taine asked.

"No, just a well known fact." Muldoon replied, shouldering his rifle and gear, and pulling his squad out to the foxholes.

Muldoon's eyes blinked for a brief instant as they stared across the no man's land. Aside from the occasional rifle shot, no-man's land was unusually quiet today. The bunkers were further to the rear, built into the sides of cliffs in the ravine. Somehow this was far more disquieting than the massive and intense assaults that he had been seeing.

Only the occasional shot from snipers on the no-man's land shattered the silence. Not fifty yards from Muldoon's foxhole was Beasley, camouflaged behind a fallen pine tree, he was taking the occasional pot shot at the creatures that ventured too near the front lines.

The relief unit arrived and the foxholes were occupied by the oncoming shift. As Muldoon led his exhausted squad back to the barracks, a harsh cadence rang across the bunkers.

"One. Two. Three. Four. One. Two. Three. Four." The cadence sounded as officers hastily trained recruits for the infantry. Clerks, cooks, orderlies, telephone operators, men under punishment for crimes all marched up and down the ravine in close order drill. Most of these men had not come out of the warm bunkers throughout the campaign and few ever dreamed of facing the enemy swarms across the no man's land. This was more evidence as to the draining manpower the Seventh Army was suffering.

Muldoon flexed cold fingers and toes as he sat on his bunk, placing his rifle at arm's length. He saw Taine was sitting, awake, his electric gun across his knees. The cadence could be heard inside the bunker as the new recruits were being marched outside.

"Bloody man power shortages. We're even using up our clerks and orderlies to hold them in." Taine said.

"I heard two tankers talking about fuel shortages being a problem. Looks like armored support won't be as available as we want it on the front." Muldoon replied.

"A sergeant from the 3rd was in here talking about how they've been intensifying attacks on his sector." Taine replied. An orderly entered and silently distributed mail about.

Taine opened the letter he received, "Bloody Kathryn, telling me about shortages on the home front. Wanting to know how we've been fairing in the encirclement."

"Tell her the shelling and attacks aren't the problem. Tell her Rees' feet are." Beasley complained from his bunk.

"Ha ha ha." Rees replied, cleaning the pistol he had filched months earlier.

"Who's Kathryn?" Muldoon asked.

"An old friend of mine, Kitty to her friends. She worked at the Cairo Museum with my parents. She went off to college I went to the army.." Taine replied.

"Why the Army?" Muldoon said.

"Why else, free money after six years of service." Taine replied, grinning.

"You're telling me you joined the Army for free college money, took all this scut work and wound up here." Muldoon grinned incredulously.

"To each his own." Taine replied, "Also I wanted to get out into some fresh air before I go back to Egypt."

"What about you?" said the Reverend, indicating Muldoon.

"What else would I do?" Muldoon said, "The Sergeant Major is just one person in the bloodline to spend his bloody life in the Army, I thought I'd do just the same." Muldoon replied.

"Reverend?" Rees asked.

"The shepherd must tend his flock. And at times," the Reverend said, "Fight off the wolves."

Later, Taine had said, "Well, there's one other reason I went into the Army. To run away."

"From what?" Muldoon asked.

"The way I felt about Kitty. I didn't think she'd want to be with me because I was sure she was crazy about someone else…"

"You ran away." Muldoon said, understanding, "I know what you mean by that."

That next day began eerily silent. Only the occasional rifle shot echoed across the cratered no man's land. Suddenly then, a massive assault on every sector of the front struck full force, USM artillery men quickly ran out of ammunition and blew up their pieces with the last shells before retreating into a second line of resistance.

Only the Bastion managed to hold the attack for any length of time before a mass stampede to the rear began.

For the 144th Australian, the day was one connected with heavy losses as they were ordered to fight a delaying action at the Eyre bridge to allow retreating troops to cross safely before they were to cross and blow the bridge up.

Dug in at several hastily thrown up rifle pits and machinegun nests, the 144th awaited the inevitable assault. "Hey Reverend," said Rees, "Could you do me a favor and pray for me."

"Of course, but let us pray in the words that the Lord taught us. In the name of the Father, and Son, and the Holy Ghost…." Reverend began.

Out in front of the 144th when the vast majority of the retreating 7th Army forces in their sector had crossed, a line of mines had been placed. Mines began to explode then.

"Maybe they're not coming. Maybe they're turning back. Maybe we got 'em all." Hendrick said.

The whine of chain saw motors and the screeching of screechers joined a cacophony of zombie groans. "Fire!" came the shout.

Muldoon fired shots carefully, blasting holes into stomachs and torsos of opposing troops. Hendrick was spraying ammunition into the attacking line, mowing several down. Machinegun nests provided more fire support and a mortar company was acting as artillery support with a single .37-millimeter anti-tank gun for anti-armor defense from across the bridge.

A slasher, chain saw raised, charged towards Taine who fired a fatal burst of electricity into it. Despite the fearsome toll of casualties inflicted on the enemy at the first line of rifle pits, Taine knew it was a short time before they would have to pull back to a second line of resistance.

The anti-tank gun kept firing rounds, blasting scorpions in half, but the armored juggernaut kept advancing. Taine's prediction came true and the first line of rifle pits fell, the men in them either fighting to the end or retreating to the second resistance line.

Like an inhuman scourge, the creatures overwhelmed the bridge defenses by sheer numbers. Surviving soldiers retreated across the bridge so quickly that the mortar company was attacked and absorbed heavy casualties before a company of the mauled 144th Australian Regiment turned around and attacked long enough for the surviving mortar men to salvage their equipment and begin the retreat.

For Taine's company it was another bloodbath. The Reverend became a casualty that day during a firefight. A group of slashers attacking a mortar platoon were spotted and attacked by Taine's unit.

Rees was firing his rifle until the weapon broke, whereupon he threw his now useless rifle at the slashers. The Reverend had just loaded another magazine, chambering a round when a drill bit fired from a slasher's drill struck him a fatal wound. His last act was to throw his rifle into the air into Rees' hands.

Stragglers who asked for the whereabouts of their units were very often told to look in Dyson City. Indeed many of the routed Seventh Army units were fleeing into Dyson where months of intensive fighting had left the city in ruins.

One block long apartment house overlooking Central Plaza in the very heart of Dyson City became known as the Crucible, for soldiers who went inside it rarely came back out. For six days men fought for just one room, grenades killing friend and foe alike. The first that Major Grayson of the 144th Australian heard of this was when an exhausted sergeant stumbled into his command post and promptly demanded more grenades.  
>A medic who examined the sergeant noticed his bloodshot eyes said, "Stay here, you may go blind."<p>

"The others in there can hardly see anything, we must have the grenades." Muldoon, the bloodshot-eyed sergeant demanded.

Another soldier volunteered to take them and Muldoon collapsed into a chair from exhaustion.

Taine was still in the wrecked ruin of the apartment house. Slashers, zombies, and other creatures had occupied the house in strength and his unit was attempting to drive them out. Bloodied bodies, either recently dead or killed in months old battles lay strew about the floors, the stench of death mingling with the thick smoke billowing into the rooms.

A soldier with a satchel full of grenades came running in. Taine grabbed one and threw it up the staircase, below which he and his men were ducked. The grenade exploded upstairs and agonized cries told him that he had inflicted some casualties.

However, the creatures still controlled the upstairs rooms, launching hit and run attacks into the soldiers in the bottom and cellar floors. Taine had lost count of how many creatures he had killed coming down the staircase. For six days and nights he and his men alongside Muldoon's squad had been fighting over this apartment house. And for six days many of the soldiers coming in with them had been killed.

From across the street snipers tracked the creatures through windows with telescopic sights. For the next day Taine heard rifle shots and screams from upstairs. That night, when he and his men picked upstairs alongside the remnants of Muldoon's squad they found several monsters lying killed on the floor, shot to death by huge holes blasted in torsos and heads.

Fierce fighting about the wrecked buildings of Dyson City could be heard day and night. Screams, rifle shots, explosions and all other noises associated with battle interfered with the sleep of soldiers holding a dangerous enemy at bay.

In a basement just off a Dyson City, Taine set up a machinegun to interdict some side streets and then saw the distraught state of the twelve men crammed into the dark basement alongside him. Muldoon's squad was holding the fort somewhere across the street with a mortar tube, depending on Taine's machinegun nest for protection.

The battered 144th was assigned to hold the Central Plaza area at all costs. With low morale and half rations, Taine couldn't see the wisdom in the command staff's planning. Conversations in the basement would lower to whispers and men would sit about, staring of into space. Many were convinced that Dyson City would be their tomb.

Even Taine himself was falling prey to such fatalistic thinking. Why had he done such a rash thing six years ago by signing up with the Army, he thought as he looked past his machinegun. Why hadn't he told Kitty just how he really felt about her? It was too late to do anything now.

The sentiment echoed in foxholes and basements throughout the 7th Army. Many soldiers were suffering from illness, starvation due to half rations being imposed, and an unshakable feeling that the 7th Army was doomed.

Muldoon watched for the hundredth time as a mortar round shot out from the basement window of his improvised mortar pit and exploded into a crowd of zombies. They had been launching mass assaults all day and they were having a hell of a time driving them off.

From his basement window, Taine looked past his machinegun at a water fountain on the intersection. For days it had been the focal point of firefights and Taine had killed a number of creatures attempting to reach it. There was also a line of dead humans on the opposite side, cut down as they crawled across the ice with empty canteens. With his war being reduced to fighting over a sip of water, Taine was ready to call it quits. A message over the radio spurred on hope, that the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Unit had landed on the outskirts of Dyson and were fighting their way in.

Morale in the shattered basements and foxholes of the 7th Army rose sharply as this news began to spread…

Biohazard, Part III

Disclaimer: Same rules apply. A line of * indicates a change in perspective, a line of – indicates a change in time forward or backward. This takes place before, during, and after the Biohazard Part I and II.

The Porpoise class submersible glided through the inky depths of the ocean, guided by the deft hands of its pilot, twenty-year-old Machinists Mate Third Class Victor Garibaldi of Orlando, Florida. The United Systems Navy operated its submarine training facility out of Bayville, New Jersey along with several oceanic research vessels, aboard, which Garibaldi served.

This was his first solo with the Porpoise class multi-role submersible, no instructor behind him haranguing him over mistakes made, nothing but himself and the waters that surrounded him. It was cold inside the submersible and Garibaldi shivered in spite of his green submariner's jacket. As his searchlights flashed they shined upon a peculiar obelisk.

Two hours later, the obelisk was raised to the surface and prepped for transport to the Isla Del Rio research facility. Garibaldi was assigned to an undersea habitat placed to study the old ruins near the obelisk. It was almost thereafter where the difficulty began…

In the submersible maintenance bay, Victor Garibaldi was made aware of this when he heard what sounded like gunshots and screams echoing down the passageway of the undersea habitat. He was going down the passageway to investigate when he was made aware, painfully, that he was unarmed. A crewman staggered his way, "Are you alright?" Garibaldi said.

Nothing but a groan escaped from the crewman's throat. And it was when he ventured closer that Garibaldi smelled the stench of rot. He looked around frantically for a weapon and saw a derelict pulse rifle lying on the floor. The zombie was between him and the pulse rifle. Skirting around it, he scooped the weapon up, turned around as the zombie was bearing down on top of him and squeezed off a shot, the zombie taking the 10mm explosive round to the chest. It kept coming. Garibaldi squeezed of two more shots, killing it finally, but the gunshots drew out more zombies and Garibaldi realized that the rifle only had one magazine, and he wasn't sure if it had been fully loaded. Retreat seemed like the best option and he took it.

As he reached the temporary shelter of a storage bay, he weighed his options. First was to try and find more ammunition and weapons, also to get to his room in the enlisted barracks to retrieve some additional firepower in the form of his Auto Ordinance M1911A1 .45 caliber pistol and three spare magazines.

He found the additional ammo he was looking for from a dead marine lying face up on the deck. He grabbed the bandolier from the corpse's shoulder, slung it across his chest and saw that the body armor on the corpse was totally useless, as it had been destroyed. Pity, the marine was about his size too. His clip was half full and Garibaldi moved cautiously through the corridors rifle at the ready, ready to put rounds into whatever had killed several of the personnel in his sector of the habitat.

Almost a year far removed from the situation developing in the undersea habitat, Vincent Taine rubbed his cold finger tips together in the frozen basement he and his men were holed up inside. Looking past his machinegun at the water fountain on a nearby intersection where many on both sides had been cut down trying to reach it, an unreachable oasis across a desert of ice.

The 3rd Marine expeditionary unit had landed a few weeks ago and the distant chord of pummeling artillery off in the distance were the sounds of their approach but they seemed far removed from the savage fighting over wrecked shells of gutted buildings.

What had seemed like a grim situation where the Seventh Army was in immediate danger of annihilation was beginning to turn around but the men in the cellar saw only the daily fighting, a single machinegun interdicting side streets from the basement's few sources of light save for the loopholes knocked into the wall to fire rifle shots out of, the window where the machinegun was protruding.

A soldier climbed the steps of the cellar to relieve Taine at the machinegun and Taine scooped up his electric gun and went down to his section of the wall where he stowed his gear.

A wrecked half-track was the scene of a fierce fight where a massive force of enemy infantry was kept stalled by a force of two snipers and surviving half-track crewmen of the 144th Australian. With only their sniper rifles, weapons salvaged from the wreckage, and a single machine gun with a few belts of ammunition things didn't look too promising. They were a block away from Taine's basement and it's machinegun's field of fire.

PFC Beasley, one of the snipers along with his spotter PFC Watkins an Aborigine from the Outback, tracked individual zombies through telescopic sights as the enemy force closed on the wrecked half-track. Firing again, two zombies telescoped downward, dead.

Watkins reloaded another twenty round magazine into his Borchadtz semi automatic sniper rifle as a lull in the action began. Chambering a round into his Lindstradt bolt action rifle, Beasley's field glasses confirmed what the lack of noise suggested, no enemy forces present.

Again the enemy forces appeared, this time the zombies were accompanied by a force of slashers. Watkins targeted a slashed between the eyes and opened fire. Moving about the wreckage, the two snipers picked off attacking enemy soldiers with deadly accuracy. The two half-track crewmen, PFC Leon Canby and Corporal Ernie Faye, fired machinegun bursts into the enemy swarm.

Beasley tracked a slasher running towards the machine gunners at full tilt and drilled it through the chest as a fragment from a drill bit struck him in the arm. Watkins hit the drill wielding slasher in the middle of the forehead.

Beasley fired again, despite the wounded arm and the zombie telescoped forward with a round blown through its chest. The contest continued and as his rifle ammunition was depleted he drew his pistol and continued fighting. Watkins, his rifle down to five rounds, handed it over to one of the two half-track crewmen and drew his own pistol. Both Watkins and Beasley were killed.

Taine and the men in his cellar could hear the gunfight, which was just out of the machinegun's field of fire. Muldoon in the other building couldn't fire the mortar for risk of hitting the other troops and mortar rounds were growing scarce, ammunition had to be rationed.

Another lull in the fighting, another deadly silence in the ruins, save for the occasional rifle shot or distant shell burst. Because of the size of the enemy force, Taine put every man in the cellar on alert. Twelve pairs of eyes peered through the few windows and firing slits in their basement and tension mounted to a point where every shadow was a zombie, every rustle of leaves the sound of a mass assault.

At the machinegun, Taine looked out of the window. For almost twenty-seven days he and his men had been confined in the dark basement, their only contact being a single squad radio and the occasional runner bringing information and ammunition needed for a day's fighting.

Taine sought to remove himself from the hellish fighting that was daily life in Dyson and he began to reach back, seven years into the past as he remembered the ankh affixed to his dog tags. He reminisced about a time where he wasn't sitting in a dark basement at a machinegun fighting a seemingly pointless holding action until the impossibly far away Marines could link up with him…

"Vincent," Kitty said, "Come here, I found something."

Vincent Taine turned around toward her, a delicate brunette with clear blue eyes who was a few yards away, excavating at a square of ground at the expedition site. This was a Vincent Taine seven years removed from the one holed up in the basement. As Kitty brushed the dust away from a ceramic fragment of some sort, she gestured him over.

"What did you find?" Vincent asked.

"I've never seen anything like it. From what I know it reads, One obelisk for it to awaken, another for it to arise. Needs any man to sound its waking call, needs one only to return it to its rest."

"Kitty, what is 'it' though?" Taine asked.

"I have no idea, but there's apparently more of it somewhere around here." Kitty said, "I'm taking this to the research tent."

"I'll go with you." Taine replied.

"So I heard you're going into the Army." Kitty said.

"I am." Taine said.

"Why aren't you going to school?" Kitty said.

"Well, Kit, I want to see the world for a few years before I go back and get stuck in the classroom and study Egyptology." Taine replied. He wanted to say what was really on his mind, that he was in love with her, but he couldn't say it. The Army offered a convenient run away and he was taking it.

"When are you leaving?" Kitty asked.

"Next week." Taine replied.

Kitty dug into a pocket, as they stopped under the shade of a statue of Horus, "Take this with you."

She pressed a tiny silver ankh into his hand, "An ankh."

"A symbol of life, I know." Taine replied, grinning.

"A symbol of eternal life," Kitty replied, grinning back, "Don't you pay attention."

"I do. When I need to that is." Taine replied.

"Another gift from a good friend, before you go." Kitty said, putting her arms around him in a friendly way. He returned the hug and sat under the statue of the god of life as Kitty left him alone with his thoughts.

He left for Basic the next week, but that memory of that moment under the statue of Horus where things could have been different where he could have said what he felt haunted him.

Even when he sat his post at the machinegun years later, he thought about that moment and rubbed the tiny ankh between his fingers, a symbol of life inside a place where death abounded.

The rubble of the wrecked city proved to be the perfect place for snipers. The 7th Army realized that trained marksmen scouring the front picking off targets of opportunity would be perfect to harass, confound, and confuse the enemy, keeping them off balance. It was when this directive was instituted that a modest, unassuming nineteen year old, Private Frank Mackenzie from the 3rd Infantry, jumped into the front lines.

Moving from ruin to ruin, the snipers hunted targets of opportunity, supported infantry positions under heavy attack, and conducted daring delaying operations. It wasn't an easy war, though; frequently creatures equipped with their own sniper weapon systems went to counter the sniper threat.

Over the radio in the shelter where the snipers were quartered, Mackenzie heard of a strong enemy presence near the central plaza. Climbing into a clock tower overlooking the plaza, Mackenzie spotted a platoon of enemy infantry maneuvering around the square. Other snipers had taken positions throughout the plaza.

Zeroing in his telescopic sight on a single slasher, Mackenzie squeezed the trigger. The slasher was struck in the chest, a little upward and to the right of its heart. Mackenzie knew what he was doing, attempting to lure out the healer, a spidery creature that would secrete a sort of healing salve onto wounded creatures to close wounds and enable them to fight.

It didn't seem to be coming out though, as Mackenzie tracked along the rubble with his telescopic sight, a round chambered in long after he had expended the first shot. Then he saw it, moving stealthily through the shadows. Shifting his aim, leading just a little, his left eye closed for focus, he breathed in let half of it out and squeezed. Dead center, fatal wound inflicted at point of impact, he had just hurt the enemy platoon's effectiveness by a third. Pulling back on the bolt, he continued to pan for targets. A single zombie shambling through the square presented a tempting target, but for all he knew an enemy sniper had set it out for bait. Lying low seemed to be the best idea…

The 11th Armored, the mobile reserve suffered a horrific attack concentrated on its positions. For two hours energy orbs rained into the northern part of Dyson City, when the barrage lifted, thousands of enemy troops rushed the cellars as USM machine gunners fired their last belts of ammunition.

The stronghold began to collapse as several troops panicked and stormed to the rear. The first wind Taine had of this was when he saw several soldiers in full retreat, their patches those of the 11th Armored Division. Several of them hastily dug into many of the cellars and ruins, others continued on further to the rear.  
>An 11th Armored tank crewman jumped into their cellar and nearly got shot by the jumpy men inside. "What's going on?" Taine asked.<p>

"They've taken the northern side of town, they kicked the #%$ out of us. They overtook the command post when I was on the run." The soldier said.

"What've you got?" Taine asked.

"A rifle, and about half a bandolier." The soldier said.

"Well you just joined infantry, tanker." Taine replied, kicking a firing loophole out of the stairwell wall.

The folded in 11th Division flank, and indeed the entire well entrenched but reeling 7th Army, was expecting an attack on every sector. The front had been echoing with rifle shots and other noises of war but usually off in a distance and the result of minor engagements. The Marines were still far off, within city limits, but still far off, fighting their way through enemy positions in the rubble.

The thirteen men crammed into Taine's cellar were ragged and worn from all the fighting going on all around them. The tank crewman, who introduced himself as a PFC Reinman, was manning the machinegun as Taine poked his electric gun through the firing loophole.

The din of city fighting echoed outside in the distance. Every now and then, artillery explosions would sound from the distant Marine artillery and armored units pummeling frontline enemy positions. The Marines had developed a tactic in which special weapons platoons would pummel enemy positions along the line of advance, and teams of combat engineers backed by a phalanx of armor and infantry would drive the creatures from hiding as the infantry fell upon them.

Despite this, the soldiers of the 144th Australian regiment, the unit closest to the Marine axis of advance, the enemy continued assaulting their positions at all hours of the day.

Taine crouched behind a wall, peering out at the ruins, watching for approaching creatures. Already several bodies littered the approach between him and the water fountain on the intersection. The bodies were covered over by a thin blanket of newly fallen snow, blurring their outlines. Taine saw the flash of a starburst shell fired from a rear battery. Taine yelled into the cellar for the men to wake up as gunfire echoed up and down the line. A soldier took post at the machinegun as a line of zombies, slashers and shriekers attacked the 144th's section of the front. Taine fired his electric gun in short bursts of fatal electricity that killed or severely injured any creature they hit, but they kept coming, several making it under the torrent of fire from the machinegun. Taine zapped one zombie and it kept coming, it's flesh singed by the electrical blast. He pulled out his pistol he had salvaged from a casualty a long time ago upon realizing his energy pack was nearly depleted and fired a round through the zombie's head. Firing his pistol until the clip went empty, he dug through an ammo pouch hanging by his side, pulling free another energy pack. By now, several zombies had come through one of the firing loopholes and the men below the staircase were fighting hand to hand to keep them out.

A blast from below caught their attention, and from the tunnel six Marine combat engineers joined them. Using electric guns, flamethrowers, pistols, knives and fists, the combat engineers managed to drive the zombies out of the basement.

The tunnels were a tenuous link between the forward Marine elements and the beleaguered 7th Army. Several of them had been blasted under the buildings or into the sewer system as a means of transporting supplies and reinforcements as well as evacuating wounded soldiers from crude field hospitals where Army doctors did their best to save them.

One combat engineer from the 29th Marine Combat Engineering regiment described a typical field hospital, converted from a promenade in what was once a large shopping mall, "Here you see doctors and orderlies racing about between cots and sometimes even shelves on walls attempting to treat wounded soldiers. There are too many for them to treat each one effectively, and more often than not, one in three manages to survive. You see all manner of wounds among the soldiers; everything from cuts and punctures wounds to lacerated limbs. One sees bodies of the deceased stacked like cargo to the far end of the room. Some of the soldiers scream without letup, others just sit or lie about listlessly. The smell is rancid, reeking of gangrene and decay."

Both the Marine and Army units they supported best loved the combat engineers. Their tasks were typically the most hazardous as they were tasked with driving out the remaining opposition from the cracked shells of buildings after artillery, armor, and mortars had pummeled the buildings, often with infantry behind them.

An eighteen-year-old PFC Henry Saundby, of the 29th Combat Engineers was on one such mission. The Marines were firing artillery rounds into the wrecked remains of an office building, as the tanks added their .75-millimeter shells and .50 caliber machineguns into the mix. Then the mortars started lobbing shells into the building. Then the call for the combat engineers came in.

Saundby checked the charge on his electric gun, a weapon specialized for close in fighting as the two flamethrower specialists moved in on point, throwing grenades into rooms and blasting fire down passageways, immolating several creatures.

Saundby threw a satchel charge up a stairwell and it exploded into a flash, killing several zombies. The flamethrowers fired next, spreading arcs of flame into the building, which had been used as a command post by the 11th Armored Division before it had been overrun. Flames licked up long dead bodies, gas which had been building up inside them ignited in blue puffs. It was a horrific sight that the baby faced Saundby would never forget.  
>A slasher came charging at them just as Staff Sergeant Flint yelled, "Clear."<p>

Saundby put a fatal charge through the slasher, adrenaline pumping through his veins as he shook violently. The Marines had taken this building with no casualties. But the fighting in the city was far from over.

Back at the undersea habitat, Victor Garibaldi crept silently on tiptoes through the zombie-infested corridors to the enlisted barracks. He opened his locker, pulling out a small backpack, two boxes of ammunition and both his pistol and his three clips. He loaded one clip, holstered the .45 and shouldered the pack as he made his way towards the armory. He grabbed a bandolier off one of the racks and placed several more spare clips into his pack. He decided to sit back and plan first as to his next step. Now that he was better armed, escaping from the undersea habitat seemed the best option.


End file.
